Minimally invasive robotic surgical systems, such as the da Vinci® Surgical System, are manufactured by Intuitive Surgical, Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif. The Johns Hopkins University Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (ERC-CISST) conducts research in aspects of minimally invasive surgical systems.
The number of robotic arms available in minimally invasive robotic surgical systems has been slowly increasing to support additional robotic surgical tools over a patient. Additionally, some more recent robotic surgical tools have a greater number of controllable features. Unfortunately, a surgeon has only a pair of eyes, hands and feet to select and control the greater number of tools and controllable features of the robotic surgical tools.